The SCI-Nurses are advanced practice nurses specializing in SCI/D care. They are available to answer questions, provide education, and make suggestions which you should always discuss with your physician/primary health care provider before implementing. Medical diagnosis is not provided, nor do the SCI-Nurses provide nursing or medical care through their responses on the CareCure forums.

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"Dr" Canavero looks like an irresponsible, nutcase Frankenstein. I feel sorry for this man who is undergoing his irresponsible experimental procedure, with cruel promises that it will cure his disability.

The dog in the video was exhibiting many brain stem modulated reflexes; this does not prove sentient activity is intact. We often see such reflex activity (blinking to eye stimulus, lip smacking, teeth grinding, etc.) in people who are brain dead or in persistent coma.

He still hasn't told anyone how is is going to make the cut spinal cord actual heal, much less reconnect to the donor's cord. If that were the case, it would be available already as a treatment for those with acute SCI.

The SCI-Nurses are advanced practice nurses specializing in SCI/D care. They are available to answer questions, provide education, and make suggestions which you should always discuss with your physician/primary health care provider before implementing. Medical diagnosis is not provided, nor do the SCI-Nurses provide nursing or medical care through their responses on the CareCure forums.

Sergio Canavero, the neuroscientist who first announced plans to carry out a head transplant in 2015, tells Newsweek the rats treated with the Gemini Protocol —his method of fusing spinal cords—regained movement and that there were no adverse side effects recorded.

Findings of the latest study are published in the Wiley journal CNS Neuroscience and Therapeutics. In it, a surgical team led by Xiaoping Ren from China’s Harbin Medical University, severed the spinal cords of 15 rats. Nine of these were then treated with the technique, while the others served as controls.

The team used a polyethylene glycol (PEG), which seals and repairs damaged spinal cord nerve cells. They severed the spinal cords of the rats, then applied a cooled saline and adrenaline to reduce bleeding. The rats chosen to receive the PEG were then treated with it and the wounds were closed. They were given antibiotics for three days following the surgery.

All of the rats except one survived for a month after the operation. Rats treated with PEG were found to “steadily” recover motor function and, by day 28, had regained the ability to walk, with two of them returning to a state that was described as “basically normal.”

“In this study, we thus confirmed that a severed thoracic spinal cord can be ‘re-fused’ with behavioral recovery. Previous experiments in mice along with the current ones define a timeline of recovery between mice and rats: one week versus two weeks.” The team said the key to spinal cord fusion is “sharp severance of the cords themselves,” meaning minimal damage is done.

“Human application of the presently discussed technique would benefit from a method to assess progression of spinal fusion. This would allow a direct correlation with clinical recovery.” Concluding, the scientists say paralysis after the spinal cord has been severed can be reversed to a “significant extent.”

Canavero tells Newsweek: “[The] controlled study in rats proved that Gemini works. This confirms the small proof-of-principle studies... [and] is a fundamental advance....

... Jerry Silver, Professor of Neurosciences at Case Western Reserve University, Ohio, works on repairing spinal cords after injury. Commenting on the latest study, he tells Newsweek it is unclear whether to team had truly severed the cord completely. “I notice that in the last paragraph they state 'In conclusion, we have shown that the paralysis following full severance of the dorsal spinal cord can be reversed—to a significant extent—by immediate application of a fusogen.' Did they sever only the ‘dorsal’ cord?” he says.

He said the team also claims the axons—which form part of the spinal cord—had regenerated, but “they show no evidence for regeneration.”

“There is no histology [the study of the microscopic structure of tissues] which is the only way to assess what is really going on here,” Silver said, adding the BBB scores—the scoring system used to assess motor function in rats—were unrealistic.

“Two treated animals supposedly recover locomotor skills that are nearly normal (BBB scores of 19 and 20 out of a possible 21 total) and as a group they average a score of 12 which means that they can on average take multiple weight bearing steps. [This is] unbelievable. Too good to be true in my opinion, which mandates that these results will have be independently verified and properly analyzed before this work can be accepted as scientifically valid.”

Responding to the criticism, Canavero said Silver was “unfamiliar” with the technique used. He says the claim that the BBB scores are “unrealistic” implies the team is “lying” and that it is time for experts who have been unable to repair damaged spinal cords “to stop criticizing those who do better.”